Cardamom & Clementine Cruffins

Christmas morning is supposed to be a slow, indulgent affair. Your house should smell of clementine, cinnamon and honey with the faint sound of festive music. You should be in new pyjamas you opened on Christmas Eve, have a hot mug of something and more than anything you should feel content. This is a mood I aspire to at Christmas, I don't want to feel stressed or rushed. I simply want to savor every special moment with my family and remind myself how lucky I am to have the life I do.

These cardamom and clementine cruffins aren't as complicated to make as you might imagine, you can whip up a batch in no time. That's thanks to store bought croissant dough, because we aren't all blessed with the amount of free time to make pastry from scratch, and to be honest who wants to when you could be enjoying time with your family. The smell that omits from the kitchen when baking these is so comforting and makes me feel super festive. Serve them straight from the oven in the morning with hot cups of tea or coffee, let people help themselves. Sugar before 9am is totally allowed on Christmas morning, right?

Serves: 6Prep time: 10 minsCook time: 13-15 mins

Ingredients

• 1 pack of croissant dough
• 40g light muscovado sugar
• Zest of 4 clementines (save juice in a ziplock bag and freeze for a cocktail coming your way soon)
• Half tbsp ground cinnamon
• Half tbsp ground cardamom
• Tiny pinch of ground cloves
• 3 tbsp butter, melted and cooled
• 2 tbsp caster sugar for dusting

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C/gas mark 4 and very lightly grease the top rims of a muffin tin.
2. Gently flour your surface and roll out your dough, cut down the vertical lines, ignoring the diagonal. You should make three separate rectangles.
3. Gently brush your pastry with cooled butter, leaving a 1/4 inch border.
4. Mix the muscovado, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and clementine zest in a bowl. You can totally add half a tbsp of the juice if you love the orange flavour, but this is optional.
5. Evenly spoon and flatten mixture across the three rectangle pieces where you've brushed butter.
6. Roll each rectangle from the bottom away from you to create a sausage shape.
7. With the fold at the bottom, cut each roll through the middle from left to right.
8. Turn it cut side up and create a roll like a cinnamon bun, making sure to keep the circle tight. Repeat with the others. You should have six rolled circles.
9. Place your rolled circles into a muffin hole flat. You may have to squish them just slightly.
10. Cook on the middle shelf for 13-15 minutes. Leave to cool for 5 mins before lifting them out of the muffin tin, dust with caster sugar and serve immediately.